If you ask a teenager today what is social networking, we all know the answer will be: Facebook. But, I don’t think social neworking started with AOL or even with online community called “The Well” (founded in 1985). I think social networking has been here since the very beginning, since the start of civilization, obviously in a much much different form.

Toward the end of last century we had the wireless (mobile) phone, before that it was a regular phone and before that it was the telegraph. These are all tools for social networking. Television and radio can also be considered social networking tools. All these tools made it possible to share information. Fast rewind to beginning and we get social tools such as fires, beacons, smoke signals, pigeons, human messengers and mirrors. I think all these were tools for social networking in one way or another.

There is a great 3 series post on TechCrunch on Social Networking: The Past, Present and Future. It’s a very good read, I highly recommend it.